Financial Economics

Adaptability to the pace of evolution of the global banking and financial services sector is a key challenge for modern enterprise management. The book attempts to make sense of the chaos and confusion of today's global banking and capital market environment by analyzing its central components. The purpose is to obtain a better understanding of the process and the services involved, and of their impact on public policy issues.

This book aims to analyse the impact of the global financial crisis of 2007–09 on Asian economies, to assess the policy responses to the crisis in terms of their effectiveness and sustainability, and to draw lessons about how best to avoid and/or mitigate future crises and to identify structural policy recommendations that can help guide Asian policymakers to expand the growth potential of domestic and regional demand in future, and thereby create a basis for sustainable and inclusive growth. The book is organized into four parts. Part 1 discusses the motivation of the book, provides an overview of the major issues, and presents some policy recommendations. Part 2 includes two chapters that review the crisis in the US and its transmission to Europe. Part 3 focuses on the impacts of the global financial crisis on Asian economies, policy responses and growth strategies. And finally, Part 4 deals with lessons of the crisis for emerging markets. The main inference of the book is that Asian economies have recovered strongly from the global financial crisis, reflecting their aggressive moves to ease monetary and fiscal policy as well as the underlying fundamental strength of their economies. However, Asia as a whole needs to transform itself into a large consumer market while maintaining its competitiveness, by rebalancing sources of growth away from excessive dependence on extra-regional to domestic and regional demand. This growth rebalancing effort requires closer policy coordination in Asia in order to pursue structural adjustment, integration of regional markets, and socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable growth.

This book sets forth the economic rationale for international financial regulation and what role, if any, international regulation can play in effectively managing systemic risk while providing accountability to all affected nations. The book suggests that a particular type of global governance structure is necessary to have more efficient regulation of the international financial systems. The book defines global governance of financial systems to involve three main principles: effectiveness in devising efficient regulatory standards and rules; accountability in decision-making structure and chain of command; and legitimacy, meaning that those subject to international regulatory standards have participated in some meaningful way in their development.

This book describes an approach, alternative to the theory of efficient markets, to the study of financial markets: behavioural finance. It begins by assessing the efficient market hypothesis, emphasising how some of its foundations are contradicted by psychological and institutional evidence. It then introduces the theory of behavioural finance and devotes the rest of the book to explore its main aspects, concentrating on the role and characteristics of noise traders, arbitrageurs, and investors. Chapters 2 through 4 focus on the limits imposed on arbitrage by factors such as risk aversion or agency problems. Two crucial conclusions are reached. First, plausible theories of arbitrage do not lead to the prediction that markets are efficient—quite the opposite. Second, the recognition that arbitrage is limited, even without specific assumptions about investor sentiment, generates new empirically testable predictions, some of which have been confirmed in the data. Chapters 5 and 6 centre on how investor sentiments are built, emphasising some empirical violations to the idea of efficient markets such as price bubbles. The book concludes suggesting that the theory of behavioural finance is indeed more effective that the efficient market theory in explaining some financial evidence.

This volume provides an understanding of firms' R&D and innovation strategies and their economy-wide consequences. It is based on the premise that differences in firm-level returns, as well as economy-wide outcomes, may be linked to the heterogeneous ways in which firms organize and undertake R&D and innovation activities. It emphasizes innovation strategies of innovating firms, and reflects that innovation efforts do not represent a uniform type of expenditure. Organized into three parts the volume moves from the micro to the macro-level. This structure highlights the notion that R&D and innovation and growth are two interdependent perspectives. The first of these is micro-oriented and focuses on innovation processes of firms, where R&D activities and other innovation efforts give rise to consequences such as a strengthening of resource bases, growth of sales and employment, patents, new products, increasing productivity and profits, and improved chances of survival. The second perspective comprises economy-wide effects in the form of overall technological change, growth in total factor productivity, and structural change processes, where certain sectors may benefit from new inputs from other sectors while others experience declining markets and reduced output.

This book provides an economic rationale for the dominant role of investment banks in the capital markets, and uses it to explain both the historical evolution of and recent changes to the investment banking industry. The book points to the importance of well-defined property rights and properly-functioning property rights institutions in supporting the devolved decision making that drives capitalist economies. A critical decision in capitalist economies is the investment decision that allocates resources to new ventures. But this decision relies upon price-relevant information over which it is impossible to establish property rights; as a result, it is very hard to coordinate the exchange of this information. The book argues that investment banks help to resolve this problem by managing ‘information marketplaces’ within which extra-legal institutions support the production and dissemination of information that is important to investors. Reputations and relationships are more important in fulfilling this role than financial capital. The theory is substantiated with reference to the industry's evolution during the last three centuries. It shows how investment banking networks were formed, and identifies the informal contracts they supported. This historical development points to tensions between banks and the regulatory impulses of the State, thus providing some explanation for periodic large-scale State intervention in the operation of capital markets. The book's theory also provides a technological explanation for the massive restructuring of the capital markets in recent decades, which can be used to think about the likely future direction of the investment banking industry.

This book examines the business liquidation process — the winding up of the affairs of a company that has either decided voluntarily to liquidate or been forced to liquidate by its creditors. The contributors to the book have substantial hands-on experience in the reorganization and liquidation of businesses, the sale of business assets, and management of commercial litigation. They share their approach to maximizing and creating value in the deteriorating and chaotic business environment that so often leads to a company going out of business. The legal forums for liquidation — bankruptcy, state receivership, federal receivership, and assignment for the benefit of creditors — are explained. The liquidator's role, powers, duties, oversight, and compensation are outlined and the special rules for bankruptcy trustees are set forth. The chapters also cover the major tasks of liquidation including investigation of the company, termination of employees, disposition of assets, evaluation of litigation, resolution of claim, distributions and ultimately, and the dissolution or “winding down” of the company.

Why have some countries been able to escape the usual dead end of international development efforts and build explosively growing capitalist economies? Based on years of fieldwork, this book provides an account of the first generation of entrepreneurs in Vietnam in comparison to those in other transition countries. Focusing on the emergence of private land development firms in Ho Chi Minh City, this book shows how within seven years the private sector produced the majority of all new houses in the real estate market. This book demonstrates that capitalist entrepreneurialism was not the result of state initiative, properly incentivized policies, or individual personality traits. Rather, a society-wide reconstruction of cognitive paradigms enabled entrepreneurs to emerge and transform Vietnam from a poor, centrally planned economy into one of the fastest growing, market economies in the world.